***
My heart thudded. Only a few more minutes until midnight, and then I would get my car keys off the table, grab Ella and drive away from here. The plan was simple - the execution I was certain was not. I waited, the house having been silent for the past hour. I knew Hans' habits - knew when he was usually in the washroom, and when he would almost certainly be asleep and dead to the world. It was the basis of all of my pranks - although the last one I pulled was over three years ago. As soon as my Tag Heuer indicated the time had arrived, I quietly opened my bedroom door, where I had been pretending to be asleep for the past three hours - claiming a headache - and had made sure Ella was in the room across from mine so I could monitor it from where I lay.
I didn't dare knock - even though Hans was a heavy sleeper, I didn't want to risk it. The doorknob turned easily in my hand, no creaking to give me away, and I was grateful for all the money my dad shelled out to maintain the house for once. The room was as I remembered - the large oak dresser, the white curtains, drawn closed, the heavy Egyptian rug underfoot. But the four-poster bed was empty. No signs of Ella ever being on it. Had I gotten the room wrong? I hadn't actually seen Ella enter it, although Hans and I had agreed she would take this room. Forehead scrunched, I walked as silently as I could to the other end of the hallway, around the balcony overlooking the sitting room below, hoping I wouldn't wake Hans up in the process. His bedroom door was shut, with no sounds that indicated he was awake - or even inside. My heart thundered, and even more so when I saw the other bedroom was empty, completely untouched, just like the other one. The only other room to check would be Hans'.
I gritted my teeth as I made my way back, debating whether it was a good idea to peek inside or not. Maybe Ella had gone off by herself already? I had to check for my keys downstairs to be sure. I hated that I hadn't gone back to retrieve them from the table - hated that my head wasn't in the game. Because Hans loved games, and I needed to be wholly present to win this one. Ella was at stake - who knew what he was capable of doing? The images of the kitten popped up again, and I willed them to remain front and center so as to remind me.
Standing before his bedroom door, I took a deep, silent breath and gently turned the knob. The door opened, and the emptiness of the room stared at me, a mocking silence that told me I was too late. The bed was unmade, but no signs of Hans - or Ella. As usual, my twin was several steps ahead, and here I was, thinking I would wait until midnight.
I threw open the doors on that top floor - the bathroom, the office, the small gym. Looked under the beds and in the closets, just in case. The balconies were next, and when I couldn't find anything there, I looked down into the water. It would have been a slow, painful death, drowning. I would know - my nightmares were crafted out of it. The water would pull you under, regardless of whether you could swim or not - because the end was the same, always the same. Limbs thrashing about, your brain telling you that you needed to get to the surface, because the precious air in your lungs was now working against you, making your chest feel like a bomb about to explode, a vise gripping you tighter and tighter - until your next exhale and inhale, when the water flows into you, invited by your own attempts to breathe. And they always ended the same, my nightmares - I would watch myself floating, face down in the bath water, and when I turned my body over, in those dreams - it was Nathan's face. As if to torture me, my mind now decided to show me Ella's face, too, what she would look like if she were to meet Nathan's fate. Her beautiful face, open and trusting, now swollen and blue, purple shadows rimming her vacant, lifeless blue eyes, mouth open, a last plea for help, undoubtedly taking in the fatal last breath.
I realized I was shaking, and gave myself a few seconds to take some cleansing breaths, to wash the images away from my mind. Hans knew - knew about my nightmares, knew my greatest fears. And I prayed he wouldn't use them as a weapon to wield against me tonight, wouldn't take Ella away the same way Nathan went. I ran down the stairs, eyes scanning the large room. Silent - so silent. And empty, as were all the rooms on this floor. The keys - my car keys were still on the table where I had placed them before. I ran to the front door - both cars were still there. Ella - Ella was still here, somewhere. But where? The boathouse. But without driving the car there, I didn't see how. It was a seven-minute drive down the gravel road that wound around the edge of the lake, flanked by trees on either side. I peered into both cars - nothing. The doors to Hans' car were all locked. The surrounding silent darkness was broken only by the insistent humming of insects, and even the birds had turned into their nests for the night.
I unlocked my car and slid in, the cool leather a reminder of how low the temperatures could drop in the area. The woods were silent as I passed them by, the
